


Tyrannus

by LucyLovecraft



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Deleted Scenes, Dream Sex, F/M, I Made It Worse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Incest, M/M, Mental Instability, Non-Consensual Kissing, Not A Fix-It, Obsession, Violence, but everyone is okay and there's only one bad kiss and then one consensual dream sequence, everyone is okay, except Bhalla who is angry and then on fire and then dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-14 19:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyLovecraft/pseuds/LucyLovecraft
Summary: Bhallaladeva had wanted to believe that there had been no choice for him. Next to such goodness, what path had been open to him but evil?Now there was no brother against whose standards he might justly fail. Alone, Bhallaladeva could only judge his actions for what they were. He saw himself clearly. And, in the end, Bhallaladeva saw nothing he did not already know.A slightly canon-divergent exploration of Bhallaladeva’s psyche. No redemption, no sympathy for the devil, just an exploration of the motivations and interior world of a man consumed with envy, hatred, and obsession. Warnings for one-sided incestuous longing between cousins raised as brothers and for violence.





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> Bhallaladeva is a man who has his brother murdered, tries to murder his mother and infant nephew, chains a woman in a public square for 25 years, and tries to rip his grown nephew's heart out with his bare hands. The inside of his head is not a pleasant place. My goal in writing this was to make the reader to believe that he is a real human being who has hopes and fears just like everybody else. The catch is that everything about him, his hopes, and dreams is monstrous.  
>   
> I blame Bhallaladeva for the dramatic prose. After all, as another villain once said, “you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style”.
> 
> * * *
> 
> In writing this monster I have had help from some truly wonderful people:  
> My steadfast friend montresori told me to write it and then beta'd what I'd written (the poor, brave woman). Thank you, buddy. ILU forever.  
> I'd assumed that the Baahubali fandom would be filled with good-hearted people, and I wasn't wrong. I'm deeply grateful to the lovely avani008 for her insight and to puppyloveblog24/spiffycups, who has been a brilliant culturepicker and all-round terrific resource for eye-opening lore. Thank you both so much.
> 
> To everyone else: I am so sorry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Devasena has her revenge, Bhallaladeva burns, and our story begins.

> “My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,  
>  And every tongue brings in a several tale,  
>  And every tale condemns me for a villain.  
>  Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree;  
>  Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree;  
>  All several sins, all used in each degree,  
>  Throng to the bar, crying all, ‘Guilty! guilty!’  
>  I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,  
>  And if I die no soul will pity me.  
>  And wherefore should they, since that I myself  
>  Find in myself no pity to myself?”
> 
> ― **William Shakespeare, Richard III 5.3.205-215**

  


> Time, who sees all, has found you out  
>  against your will.
> 
> ― **Sophocles, Oedipus Rex 1399-1400**

 

* * *

 

He was already dead, but his body refused to accept it. Every nerve was alive with pain, the animal flesh that housed his soul howling in a final effort to force him to save it.

 _Fight,_ his body said, warrior-trained and strong still.

 _Fight,_ said a lifetime of defiance.

 _Fight,_ said the fire: not the pyre, but the one burning beneath his breastbone.

But he knew himself a corpse.

Maharaja Bhallala Deva of Mahishmati’s eyes were open as he burned. He saw the world as it had always been: fire and smoke, light and darkness, good and evil, his brother and himself. Even as the shadows closed in he could still see him through the flames, and not only his brother alone.

She was there. Triumph shone through her like light: his dark lady, his silent confidant, the mother of his doom. When first he clasped the iron fetters to her wrists her he had not appreciated the trite symbolism of it: his actions had already bound them both together as surely as though he himself wore the other end of those long chains.

Bhallaladeva had made Yuvarani Devasena of Kuntala his captive. That fact had never lost its savour over the years, but much else had changed. When the man who holds the keys to the prison can no more escape it than the prisoner, what did it matter which side of the bars he stood on? Neither could be free. For twenty-five years, they had forged each link of the doom binding them together. For twenty-five years, he had fuelled her rage, and she had fuelled his pyre. Now both were ablaze. Now, perhaps, they would both be freed.

Then there was the other—that bright, terrible, beautiful, impossible other. How could he be standing there? Madness whispered to Bhallaladeva that it was not his brother, _could_ not be his brother. Not his brother, returned to him untouched by time. Not his brother, this living image of the eidolon Bhallaladeva had preserved in the dark hallows of his heart. _Not Amarendra Baahubali,_ the madness whispered, _his son_. But Bhallaladeva knew better.

It had always been the two of them: Bhallaladeva and Baahubali. Bhallaladeva had been the first to enter the world. _“Darkness there was first, by darkness hidden.”_ Then came Baahubali, outshining Bhallaladeva from the moment of his birth. Baahubali had died, it was true. Yet somehow Bhallaladeva had always known his brother would be with him in the end. It was the way of things—the way of poetry and of the hand that writes the fates of kings. Now Bhallaladeva was dying and even as he burned alive Baahubali shone brighter.

The darkness around Bhallaladeva grew darker still. He felt a grotesque, swelling pressure behind his eyes. Smoke seared his lungs, greasy with the scent of his own flesh. Bhallaladeva did not fear the darkness: it was his and always had been, by nature and by choice. But when the light died, he screamed.


	2. Cruelty Has a Human Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Standing over his murdered brother's body, Bhallaladeva faces the truth about himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gore warning: I didn’t add anything that wasn’t in the movie, but I did bring it in from its tasteful offscreen editing and describe it.  
> Incest warning for a mention of lust directed at a cousin raised as a brother.  
> I don’t agree with most of the conclusions Bhallaladeva comes to. He’s a fictional POV character, so it probably doesn’t need saying but: his opinions and theories are not mine. They're my theories about what _his_ theories are.

**Twenty-five years ago:**

Dead. At long last, Baahubali was dead.

Even seen at a distance through smoke and dancing flame, Bhallaladeva recognised his brother. He knew every line of that back: the breadth of a warrior’s shoulders, the narrow waist, that effortlessly regal poise. Debased and exiled though he had been, Baahubali had always seemed a king. Even in death the stone he sat upon became a throne.

But he could be dethroned.

Bhallaladeva placed his foot just below the fatal wound and kicked. The seated corpse toppled to the ground, rolling to face up at the night sky.

Brushing past Kattappa, Bhallaladeva briefly noted the old hound’s haggard look. For all Kattappa’s stodgy honour, the slave had still stabbed his beloved Baahu in the back. He had fulfilled his duty to his king. Bhallaladeva smiled to think what a cold comfort _that_ would be on sleepless nights.

“I suspected you unnecessarily,” he told the him. “You are my slave—my dog—indeed.”

Then all thoughts of Kattappa left his mind.

Bhallaladeva’s world narrowed to Amarendra Baahubali. The king stalked round the body, basking in the triumph of this longed-for moment. His brother lay dead at Bhallaladeva’s feet. It was a triumph. What else could it be?

In the red firelight the corpse had an almost lifelike glow. Bhallaladeva almost expected the dead eyes to open, despite the bloody wound.

What might I have seen in those eyes? he wondered. Comprehension? Submission? Both, even? Bhallaladeva’s heart beat faster.

“Baahubali!” he cried, finally taking as much pleasure in the name as had all the fools and sycophants who’d ever shouted it. “Amarendra Baahubali!”

A triumph, he thought. _My_ triumph. Yet the word did not glow in his chest as he had imagined it would.

He dismissed the thought. These were but the first, dawning moments of his victory. Soon his sun would rise and all Mahishmati would testify to his apotheosis. _This_ was his true coronation, not the farcical ceremony his brother had spoiled.

Bhallaladeva sneered, remembering Baahu’s oath that day. He mocked the silent corpse with its own earnest words:

“‘I, Amarendra Baahubali, will protect the people of Mahishmati,’”—

The corpse was still. Something in that restful silence seemed to strike at the very heart of his exultation. Bhallaladeva struck back, lashing out with his axe. Flesh gave way under the strength of his blow, and there was the familiar the grate of bone against metal, and yes, _that_ felt like victory.

—“‘Their health, wealth, lives, and dignity.’”

He struck again. Baahu’s blood spattered his face, still warm enough to run red. He could feel it on his skin, could feel the way the tip of the axe had caught under a rib, could feel the heat of the fire behind him. Those things, at least, he could feel.

Bhallaladeva wiped the gore away, teeth bared.

“‘As your _savior_ ,’” he snarled, unable now to tear his eyes from his brother’s face or the wounds in his chest.

—“‘With Queen Mother Sivagami Devi as witness,’”—

He hacked at the body, trying to recapture that first, reassuring rush the violence had given him. But even as he sought it the feeling drained away like water from cupped hands. In its place Bhallaladeva felt a hollowness in his chest the likes of which he had never known.

—“‘I take this oath of allegiance.’”

Oath finished, Bhallaladeva sat down on the stone—his brother’s stolen throne. Manic laughter welled up inside him at the thought. This rock, after all, was the only throne he had ever truly taken from Baahubali. It was their doting, dotard mother who had snatched Baahu’s throne from him. He grinned down at his brother, sharing the secret:

“Queen Mother, foolish mother! I deceived her,” he confided. “I made her think you planned to assassinate me. I made her sign and seal your death warrant.”

Bhallaladeva's own mother. In the end, she had finally granted her son his birthright. She had granted him the crown he had longed for, had striven his whole _life_ for. Yet Bhallaladeva’s crown had not been a mark of his mother’s esteem or love. It had simply been a switch in her hand: a punishment for his brother. The throne should have been Bhalla’s reward, the fulfilment of his life’s labours. Instead it was his only because their mother had not found Baahubali worthy. It had still been about Baahu. It was all always for Baahu.

The satisfaction he felt at using her blind adoration of Baahu against her had been some comfort. The greater satisfaction had been watching Sivagami reduced to his own level in Baahu’s esteem.

That had been a marvel in a day of marvels. The greatest had been Baahu’s unbelievable yet predictable choice, defying their mother for the sake of that stubborn mountain princess. (And how fitting that Baahu had found a bride so like their mother!) Faced with his choice, Baahubali had chosen his principles over Sivagami and the crown of Mahishmati.

Second only to that great marvel had been seeing the anguish and fury on Sivagami’s face. Really, Baahu must have broken the old bitch’s stone heart in two.

Baahubali had loved her, too, he supposed. But to Bhallaladeva it seemed even that love smacked of duty. Baahu, his brother thought, did not really love as mortals loved, but as the kind gods must: loving all equally from the queen mother down to the lowliest slave. His brother could not love one human soul less than another, but neither could he love one soul more to the exclusion of others.

Instead, Bhallaladeva had always suspected that what partiality Baahubali felt was not love but a kind of simple, radiant delight in those righteous few he found. Kattappa had his esteem, as did Devasena. Sivagami, too, had been worthy. Even Bhalla himself, once.

When they’d failed to measure up to his perfect standards that pure delight vanished beyond hope of recall. There was still his impartial, universal love, but that was not the love that mortal hearts desired.

It was a harsh truth that Bhallaladeva had learned early. Sivagami, blinded by Baahu’s adoration, had understood too late, to her cost.

_Foolish mother!_

In the end, for Sivagami, Baahu had learned her lessons too well. He had cherished her righteous principles above her favour or even her love. True righteousness required that one be humble, confessing human weakness. Sivagami had not survived all these years as Queen Mother by admitting any weakness. Her will was adamantine.

Oh, she’d had her tawdry moral excuse when changing the terms of the contest in battle with the Kalakeyas. But in the case of Devasena she’d had none. Led into error, she could not lose face before the entire court or cheapen her word by going back on it. No, not when she knew herself to have erred. Turning her shame into rage, she struck down Baahu rather than bear the humiliation of her mistake.

Bhallaladeva thought there had even been jealousy, too—the jealousy of a mother seeing herself supplanted as the best-beloved goddess of her son’s heart.

Really, despite all these years of hating her, Bhallaladeva had almost admired the old harridan in that moment. Bhallaladeva loved power. So, in her own way, did Sivagami. She had chosen pride and power over principle, even over her darling Baahubali. Bhallaladeva knew that calculation well: it was the mathematics of statecraft. It had been Sivagami’s truest gift to her true son.

Watching his mother’s face as Baahubali made his choice, he saw their shared kinship there, too. He recognised that look—that bitter realisation that Baahu would never love you, not as you wanted him to. Sivagami, after all, was only human. Proud queen though she was, she loved as all humans must: selfishly. How terrible it was to be merely human and yet love a saint.

Amarendra Baahubali did not understand the selfish desire of human hearts. He could not comprehend how such hearts yearned to be loved not for the soul’s virtues, but for themselves alone. The love Baahu offered was not really love. Love was cruelty, possession, selfishness, and desire. Baahu was beyond such things. Bhallaladeva knew love, though. Baahu inspired all love's myriad sins in him, and more.

His brother. His foster-brother. _Cousin, really._ But no, he would not play word games with himself. With himself, he could be honest.

Amidst all Bhallaladeva’s monstrous desires, this was foremost in the demonography of his heart: he loved Baahu. He hated him. He wanted him. It was love, but his love was an unclean thing: aberrant, as Bhallaladeva himself was an aberration.

He knew himself a monster twice over. None but a monster could have wanted as he wanted or done what he had done.

He was, he told himself, what Baahu had made him.

Familiar furies coursed through him. Baahu had taken everything from him—everything! What had he not taken that should have been Bhallaladeva’s by right? He had taken everything, even his mother’s love.

“Who are you to swear your oath by her?” he demanded of the corpse. _His_ mother, not Baahu’s.

But no, Bhallaladeva thought, there was no more purpose to these lies. He would not delude himself. His mother had never loved him; not she, cold, and unnatural. Nor had his father. Neither had any of the fools who dogged his footsteps vying for scraps. The only person who had ever truly cared for him had been Baahu. It had been all duty and fraternal fondness, but it had still been closer to love than anything Bhallaladeva had known. Now Baahu lay dead at his feet.

_What had he done?_

Bhallaladeva had wanted to believe that there had been no choice for him. Next to such goodness, what path had been open to him but evil? He could not be good, not when measured against such an impossible standard.

_Baahu had driven him to it. He had!_

Yet these were lies, too.

Now there was no brother against whose standards he might justly fail. Alone, Bhallaladeva could only judge his actions for what they were. He saw himself clearly. And, in the end, Bhallaladeva saw nothing he did not already know.

Despairing, he hacked at the body, the axe flashing in his hand. It rose and fell, rose and fell. Hatred choked him, worse than smoke and the broken body's stench. He needed Baahu there, _longed_ for him, if only for the carnality of a living body under his blade.

While his brother lived, there had been no words that could encompass all that Bhallaladeva longed for. He had known only that his touch would defile, even as Baahu’s touch must have cleansed him. Desire had tormented him, but it was a desecration Bhallaladeva would not permit himself.

The failed murder attempt on the cliffs had been the first and last time he’d tried to kill Baahubali with his own hands. He regarded that failure as a sign. It was a confirmation of his own belief: to touch Baahu with desire in his heart—be it for lust or for murder—would be impossible. Fate would not permit it. He had raged against his own madman’s logic, but his soul confessed the rightness of it. Deep in his heart, he knew this was why he had needed Kattappa to strike the killing blow.

Only now could Bhallaladeva touch him. Only now, when all that made Baahu who he was had fled. This corpse was not Baahu. It was nothing, mere meat, and the king hacked at it like a butcher until even his powerful arm ached.

Where was his triumph? If he had won the throne, why did he feel that he had lost?

Ruin, he thought, in one clear moment. Everything he touched turned to ruin.

Slowly, Bhallaladeva began to understand. In killing his brother, he had triumphed for one moment. Now another moment passed, and another. In each one, there was no goal to strive for, no prize to be seized. Victory was his by default, but what did he win if his brother did not lose?

What had he, Bhallaladeva, lost?

The Maharaja of Mahishmati held the axe poised high over his head, but he could no more move than could the dead man before him. He was powerless to escape the fate he had made for himself, trapped amidst the ruin of his twisted hopes. Now, finally alone with the truth of his own soul, Bhallaladeva stared down at the red horror he had made of his brother’s body.

_It was you, Baahu. It was always you._

Some part of him longed to take the mangled carcass in his arms. He wanted to touch, to hold it against him now that there were no lies left between them. But even for that, it was too late.

I was always in his shadow, he thought. Now the light has gone out and only shadows are left.

He was alone. Utterly alone.

Alone, but for Devasena.


	3. The Dead of Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Devasena had always despised Bhallaladeva. How could she not? The man was a coward, a murderer, and a thief. Yet because she had not grasped his true nature she had underestimated him. She had not understood that envy had given him teeth: not a tiger’s, but those of a serpent.
> 
> She knew him better now. There were strange things hidden in the depths of the man’s craven soul. She would plumb those depths in time, and each sordid secret would be an arrow in her quiver. On the day her son returned she would use them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the scenes with all the Kuntalan guerillas seemed to be pretty mountainous (feat. snow and avalanches), making mountains a key part of Kuntalan identity seemed like a fun thing to do.  
> Devasena is too awesome for me to do her justice, but it was nice to take a break and write somebody who isn’t horrible.

**Twenty years ago:**  
  
_Unyielding as the bones of the earth,_ Devasena thought. _Honour above the loftiest peaks. Patient as the grind of glaciers. Wrath like the avalanche._  
  
Devasena had made a mantra of the words. She had become all those things, and more. Once, she had been Yuvarani of Kuntala. Now Kuntala was gone she must preserve it within herself, embodying the strengths of the land that bore her. She had become Kuntala, and so she had added another line to her litany: _Silent as the drifting ash._  
  
Devasena repeated the words in her heart, watching as the first stars kindled in the east. She thought Bhallaladeva might come to her tonight. He always came to her at nightfall, and he always came alone. She looked forward to it with lupine hunger.  
  
At first, in those terrible days when the loss of both husband and son had been fresh, Devasena had feared that Bhallaladeva had some new indignity in mind, some secret cruelty he did not want even his sworn guards to see. She knew her own strength and had resolved to face it, whatever it might be.  
  
Yet nothing had happened. No new torment came. By day, his visits were full of gloating insults. At night, he simply watched her. So it continued, month after month.  
  
For her part, she did not even look at him. She had already armoured herself in silence. The minute Sivagami fled with Mahendra (she shut her eyes against that bittersweet memory), Devasena knew everything had changed. Their lives were no longer a game whose moves were to be played out in days, but in years. There were no more words to be said. She had planted her seed. Now she could only wait for it to grow and bear fruit.  
  
Bhallaladeva had taken a husband, a son, a life, and a homeland from her. Devasena resolved that she would give him nothing else: not a glance, not one single spoken word.  
  
Curiously, her silence had cast a spell on him. It worked most powerfully in the lonely nights, summoning Bhallaladeva to her cage. With no further torture forthcoming, she had wondered what he wanted. She waited, and in time, her patience was rewarded.  
  
“I have only one regret,” he had said at last, almost half a year since Baahu’s murder. “That I did not kill him myself.”  
  
Before, she would have laughed and upbraided him for his cowardice. Yet Devasena had grown wise in her months of captivity. Now she valued his statement at its true worth, grateful for the unlooked-for gift: Bhallaladeva himself did not believe he could have slain Baahubali. She had added that to her few, hoarded comforts.  
  
“It is a curious irony,” Bhallaladeva had continued. “But that thought almost makes me wish he were alive again.”  
  
_“...Makes me wish he were alive again.”_ Incredibly, she’d known those words held a kind of twisted truth.  
  
From that night on, things changed once again. Bhallaladeva came to her, confessing the secret horrors of his heart. Ever silent, she learned to sift for truth amongst the lies. Slowly, she came to know this monster who had murdered her joys.

Devasena had always despised Bhallaladeva. How could she not? The man was a coward, a murderer, and a thief. Yet because she had not grasped his true nature she had underestimated him. She had not understood that envy had given him teeth: not a tiger’s, but those of a serpent.

She knew him better now. There were strange things hidden in the depths of the man’s craven soul. She would plumb those depths in time, and each sordid secret would be an arrow in her quiver. On the day her son returned she would use them all.

 _Her son._  
  
That made her think of Sivagami, as she so often did these days. Devasena understood Sivagami better now. With the perspective of years, she realised how much she admired the woman’s determination. The Queen Mother could easily have chosen to favour her own child, but instead she has striven to do what was just. That Sivagami had failed in her righteous resolve was, Devasena thought, the first true tragedy she had ever witnessed.  
  
The second tragedy been her own failure, equally righteous, equally ruined by pride: to see her husband take his rightful place on the throne.  
  
The final, greatest tragedy of all had been that, deep down, both she and Sivagami had wanted the same thing.  
  
Devasena regretted the friendship she could have shared with Sivagami. She now saw how alike she and Sivagami had been—too alike for their own good. They were both women of royal blood, filled with the desire to do what was right and the indomitable will necessary to hold to that aim. Both had shared the same sins of pride and stubbornness.  
  
The yuvarani of Kuntala knew the consequences of pride now. Yet she looked back at her own life and saw few choices that she could have made differently. She had been a foreign princess, technically a captive by order of Sivagami. Being brought before Sivagami in court was a calculated humiliation that Devasena could never have accepted. It was not her honour alone that she had to vouchsafe.

Small though the Kuntala Kingdom was, they had a right to their pride. No people were more skilled in the ways of the wildwood. A Kuntalan hunter could be dropped in a forest blindfold and would find shelter, water, and food in days. And should the hunter wish to move unseen, none would note their passing, nor ever discover their secret trails and hideouts.

There was great beauty in the mountains, but also great danger. The lessons of her homeland had helped her hold her head high in the gorgeous, perilous halls of Mahishmati’s palace. They had given her strength when indignity and shame had been heaped upon her. But she now knew that her life, her people’s lives, and their very homeland had been mere pawns in Bhallaladeva’s game.  
  
Worse, she now understood that Bhallaladeva’s schemes had all been designed to drive Devasena as a wedge between Baahubali and his mother.  
  
Baahubali’s goodness had given him an almost spiritual detachment from the everyday horror of the indignities that had been done him. Baahu had possessed honour beyond compare, accepting first his mother’s decree and then Bhallaladeva’s cruel demotion.  
Devasena had shared his fervour for truth, but the gods had given her the hard-headed practicality of her people, or at least enough to know that Mahishmati needed a good king, not just a cunning one.  
  
Sivagami had known this as well. Though both Devasena and Sivagami had failed in their goals, they had set wheels in motion that would save Mahishmati, and which might yet redeem their mistakes.  
  
These, and other thoughts filled her mind as the night darkened around her.  
  
A lone figure left the palace and began to stride towards her cage. The strong set of those shoulders was so like Baahu’s, but Devasena could never have mistaken one brother for another.  
  
Baahu had been so sure of himself, solid as the mountains she loved. The rock of the mountain did not ask who it was—it carried the truth of its own purpose within itself. From that strength had come such gentleness: his kindness to all, his honour for her, and his soft sighs of contentment as he pulled her close. She remembered that sigh. He had reached for her thus even as he slept, and so she had spent many peaceful nights in his arms, her cheek resting in the warm hollow of his neck.  
  
His brother was inconstant. In their talks, he veered between what seemed to be two Bhallaladevas. The first she has known when Baahu was alive: cruel and boastful, arrogant in his power. She thought of him as “Maharaja Bhallala Deva”, more title than man, unpredictable in his sudden rages, always striving to prove his own mastery. The other Bhallaladeva was far worse. He was cold and quiet, utterly vicious, contented in the consciousness of his own villainy. For years, she had believed this last Bhallaladeva to be his true face. Now she thought that both were true, and every gradation in between.  
  
Devasena did not know if he was mad, but she thought not. Bhallaladeva was a cosmic inverse of his brother. Baahubali had been no ecstatic mystic drunk with goodness and love—he had simply been good. Bhallaladeva was evil.  
  


* * *

  
“Who is there who can rival me?” Bhallaladeva boasted tonight. “What king, of all the world’s kingdoms, is even half so mighty?”  
  
Devasena was glad of her stooped posture and the tangled hair that hid her face. Cloaked in degradation, she could allow herself in one small, secret smile. Baahu had never needed to brag.

Even in rags, her Baahu had been a king. He had loved her, and his love had made her a queen. Bhallaladeva could no more take that truth from her than he could have taken Baahu’s love. Undying as their love was, she knew herself a queen still.  
  
“How could he have ever ruled?” Bhallaladeva continued. “He didn’t even notice his own brother scheming against him! His rule would have been just like the battle, always ceding advantage out of some weak sense of martyrdom, docile and complacent as a sheep. His stupid trick with the burning tents worked, but that’s all it was: a trick!  And saving those peasants was the greatest weakness of all. A ruler must be ready to make sacrifices. He could have lost valuable men and horses, and all to save some nameless villagers. Weak. He was weak!”  
  
Devasena thought that, intimate as he was with weakness, Bhallaladeva should have understood its nature better. Doing what was easy and convenient would always be the path of weakness. It took true strength to rise to the greater challenges that obstructed the righteous path.  
  
Look at him, she thought. Look at this Maharaja of Mahishmati: after all his deceits and lies he had finally attained the fulfillment of all his desires. Yet the easy path brought no true fulfillment. Bhallaladeva could not rest easily, seated on another man’s throne and wearing another man’s crown, not when he himself knew that he deserved neither of them. They were stolen glories.  
  
So he bent all his powers of deception to try to reassure himself that he was king. He came to her in the dead of the night, as if the very sight of her in chains could somehow persuade him of his own power. Unconvinced of his own strength, he tried to convince her.  
  
For that, Devasena thanked the gods. She had suffered much, but there was no greater solace than to have the sovereign of Mahishmati come cringing to her like a beaten dog. As if that were not sweet enough, all she need do was listen while he laid bare every doubt and insecurity in his villain’s heart. Baahu had pitied Bhallaladeva at times, but Devasena had neither pity nor forgiveness. Let Bhallaladeva struggle against his Pyrrhic victory—even that would be taken from him in the end.  
  
“He was weak, but they all thought him perfect! Perfect, perfect, perfect!” He swung a fist and slammed it against the side of her cage with a ringing blow. The cage shuddered, sending tremours through her chains. Surely his hand must have been in agony. But instead of crying out, Bhallaladeva staggered back, head low like an angry bull, swaying as he glared at her.  
  
He was drunk. The realisation shocked Devasena from her reverie, bringing her sharply into the present. Drink was Bijjaladeva’s vice, not his son’s.  
  
“Always perfect, and at everything!” A pause, and then he continued with vicious leer: “Was he a perfect lover, too? Was that the source of all your vaunted ‘fidelity’? That you lusted for him like a bitch in heat?”  
  
Devasena’s skin pricked, her warrior’s senses alert to the terrible danger of this moment. Though she kept her breathing steady, she could feel her heart pounding. Bhallaladeva had never lowered himself to quite this level before (she wondered how he endured the shame of it). He had never been so utterly intoxicated. And a deeper instinct told her that she was now far out in uncharted waters. Prisoner as she was, she must be wary.  
  
“Well?” Bhallaladeva snarled. “Why don't you answer, hag?”  
  
That was surprising, too. He had not reproached her with her silence for a great while. That he wanted an answer to _this_ line of questioning was more than significant. She glanced at him from beneath the shadow of her hair. Despite herself, the expression she saw on that face disturbed her. She had thought she knew him by now, but the intensity of this outburst filled her with dread. All her certainties now seemed uncertain; this strange mood might even presage a physical attack.  
  
“Do you still think of him at night? If I wasn’t here would you be touching yourself, imagining it was him?”  
  
Even by starlight, Bhallaladeva’s expression seemed twisted and inhuman, like a soul in torment.  
  
Why this? Why now? What lay beneath this outburst? A sense of foreboding seized her, but still she listened.  
  
“Yes,” he hissed. “That’s your secret. The great Devasena—so holier-than-thou, so faithful—defiling his memory to slake your lust.” He stepped closer, voice soft and madness in his eyes. “Do you break your silence then, I wonder? Do you cry out his name?”  
  
Truth hit like a thunderclap, and she nearly staggered at the monstrosity of it. Bile filled her mouth. She knew with awful certainty that every sin he ascribed to her was a confession of his own. Had she not been a warrior, Devasena might have flinched back from so repugnant a being. She did not flinch, but her skin crawled at the thought of his nearness. She could barely breathe, as though her very body feared she might catch his contamination. This was beyond sin: it was abomination.  
  
What was this royal line of Mahishmati? What curse had struck this family that its princes became either monsters or saints?  
  
Bhallaladeva had fallen silent. But silence was her language, and she let it speak.  


* * *

  
He understood her, as she had understood him. For a moment it was as though she had stolen his very voice from him.   
  
He had said too much, and now she knew.  
  
What of it? he thought with drunken defiance. Who would she tell? Who would believe her? Only Kattappa, and the old slave hadn’t balked at murdering Baahu.  
  
Slowly, he began to smile at Devasena. Now, at last, there could be perfect truth between them—a truth which would bring them closer together.  
  
“How could I not want him?” he asked her, low and reasonable. “He was so _beautiful_. Who would not wish to ruin such perfection, just a little?” He picked up a length of her chains, hefting their weight. “I often imagined having him in chains just like this. You could say it was the inspiration for your current state.”  
  
She moved then, just a little: a slight twitch of her chained wrists, as if she’d wished to shake them off.  
  
Pleasure warmed Bhallaladeva’s heart. At last, he had found a way to breach her walls.  
  
“That was an early fancy, rather simple and crude in its details. There were others, of course.”  
  
He told her, sparing no detail. All that night, he told her every dream he’d ever had of his brother. He shared each vividly-imagined and cherished fantasy, all familiar from long years of loving contemplation.  
  
“You should be grateful that your son is dead,” he said at last, leaving her as the eastern sky began to lighten. “Had he grown into a man like Baahu, I would have enjoyed with the son all the delights I’d been denied with the father.”  


* * *

  
That afternoon the report came in that Devasena had begun gathering up bits of wood.  
  
“Sticks, _maharaja_ ,” the soldier said. “She’s filling the public trough that’s usually connected to the waterways. We were going to fill it again when the repairs on the bridges are done. What should we do, your majesty?”  
  
Sticks? Bhallaladeva wondered. What was she doing picking up sticks? Saving the street sweepers some labour? Knowing Devasena, it was more likely that she planned to sharpen them into stakes. But why now? Had all his confessions broken something inside her? The thought tickled him.  
  
“No, leave it dry,” he said, dismissing the issue with a wave of his hand. “Let her amuse us with her pathetic madness. She’s hardly going to overthrow Mahishmati with a handful of twigs.”  
  
The court erupted into dutiful laughter.  
  
Out in the square, Devasena unloaded another armful of kindling. The trough was was wide and deep, and what few pieces of wood she’d gathered seemed pitifully small. She turned away, bending again to her task. It would take years, she knew, but Devasena had learned the value of patience.


	4. Where Paths Converge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shivu enters Mahishmati in search of Devasena. He infiltrates the palace disguised as a guard, but is captured. In the dungeons of Mahishmati’s palace he learns his true name and looks into the eyes of his father’s murderer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon divergence: Shivu is perfect and great at many things and I adore him for it, but it’s a little hard to believe passed as a royal guard when he was about a head taller and visibly stronger ~~and handsomer~~ than every other armed mook present. We’re going to assume in this story that Bhalla noticed the giant guy at the back whose armour didn’t fit and who was the spit-n’-image of his murdered bro. This got our hero captured. Shivu has a shitty day but DON’T WORRY HE’S OKAY
> 
>  **Strong warnings** for non-consensual kissing and touching between an uncle and an adult nephew. ~~Ugh, I grossed myself out writing that. _Oh! for a Muse of Fluff!_~~

**Ten days ago:**  
  
The boy had all the strength of a young wolf. A whole company of guards had attacked him and it had only slown him. In the end, it took Kattappa and his trained elite to capture him.  
  
Kattappa had only seemed to recognise the boy at the last minute, and the king had seen the shock and despair on the slave’s face as he realised whom he’d captured.  
  
Later, Bhallaladeva had allowed Kattappa in to the cell to speak with this interloper. He’d listened through a concealed passage and, as he’d expected, Kattappa had soon established a rapport. Between the old man’s guilt-ridden adoration and Baahu’s blind trust, it would have been inevitable.  
  
Baahu, of course, was not Baahu. He was no apparition come to haunt Bhallaladeva. He was Devasena’s whelp: nothing less and nothing more, alive thanks to Sivagami’s final act of betrayal. The story that Mahendra, or “Shivudu” as the bumpkin was apparently known, had told of his mysterious discovery by the tribes at the base of the of the base of the falls solved that particular mystery.  
  
What he had been doing in the palace disguised as a guard, Bhallaladeva could not guess. Nor did he learn, as Kattappa chose that moment to unburden his own conscience. The story had been pathetic in the extreme, filled with insipid paeans to all Baahubali’s best faults. Statecraft, it seemed, had no value in Kattappa’s eyes.  
  
It had been different to see this nephew of his from a distance through the concealed passage. At that remove, in the near-darkness of the windowless cell, the resemblance between murdered father and living son seemed somehow lessened. Bhallaladeva had been able to forget the disturbing likeness, and focus only on the threat his arrival posed to his reign.  
  
Then he entered the cell. The young man’s head had snapped up, alert and wary, despite hanging chained to a cold stone wall the whole night. Now Maharaja Bhallaladeva stood before this prisoner who did not know him, and all he could see was his brother’s face.

 

* * *

 

“I hear you came from a village beneath the waterfalls. And that you climbed those waterfalls. Very impressive.”  
  
Doubts assailed Shivu’s mind. He thought of Kattappa, kind Kattappa, who had given Shivu the gift of his past and of his true name. Shivu had trusted him. Incredible though the story had seemed, there had been such sincerity in the old soldier’s look and that Shivu had to believe him. It has almost been easy, as if some part of Shivu had always known. But Kattappa had, by his own admission, murdered Shivu’s own father, whom he’d loved like a son. Had Kattappa betrayed his secrets to the king?  
  
No, Shivu thought, feeling the truth of it in his heart. He trusted Kattappa. Shivu did not know how the king knew—probably some underhanded trick—but that detail was unimportant right now.  
  
The Maharaja of Mahishmati was watching him.  
  
Shivu had spent a whole night in darkness. Though there was only one torch in the sconce, he could clearly see the king’s cruel smile, amused as though he’d guessed all Shivu’s thoughts.  
  
Shivu did not know what it was he saw in the king’s eyes. He had never seen anyone look like that before. The king stared at Shivu as a starving man might look at a poisoned meal.  
  
“But you always were strong, weren’t you?”  
  
Silence seemed the best option. If he stayed silent, the king might continue to talk, and perhaps Shivu could learn something—anything—to help him escape this place.  
  
The king tilted his head, considering. Then he moved. Shivu was fast: the village boys had been unwilling to wrestle him for years. No one had ever been as fast as he, until now. The fist slammed into Shivu’s face, the edges of golden rings leaving bleeding cuts in his skin.  
  
Shivu spat blood but forced himself to raise his head back up. He would look this man in the eyes—this uncle who had murdered his father.    
  
“I have prayed to the gods,” the king snarled. “I have prayed for so many things, when I was weak. I prayed for mother to choose me. I prayed for the people’s love. I prayed for the crown to come to me by right, not because _you_ chose that woman and your damned principles over the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world.”  
  
The next few blows were aimed directly at his gut, a quick succession of agonising strikes that left his entire body convulsed, gasping desperately for air. Dully, he felt a hand twining in his hair, hauling his head up. Shivu’s eyes were watering, but he could make out see the king’s face just inches from his own.  
  
“And once—just once—when I should have been content, when I had everything I ever wanted, I staggered blind drunk into your memorial. Because you would not leave me alone. You would not let me be! So I asked the gods that, if even your death could not free me from you, then they would at least give you back to me.”  
  
The man was deranged. He saw in Shivu the ghost of his murdered brother.  
  
“Why, of all my prayers, was that the one the gods chose to answer?”  
  
He smiled, then, and it was a thing terrible to behold.  
  
“But now I have you.”  
  
“You’re insane,” Shivu said. He shouldn’t have said anything at all. Shivu tensed in anticipation of another shattering blow. Instead the king smiled at him, a slow, small smile whose quiet madness made Shivu’s hair stand on end.  
  
“And you are dead. The mad king and the living ghost.”  
  
The false calm crumbled away, even as Shivu watched, and he saw the darkness roiling beneath it.  
  
“How dare you look at me like that, with _his_ face!”  
  
The blow whipped Shivu’s head to the side and he felt the sharp impact as he struck the wall. Pain blurred his senses to the exclusion of all else.  
  
Dimly, he became aware of gentle hands raising his head again. When his vision finally cleared, his face was cradled in the king’s hands, the warrior’s callouses rasping against the stubble on Shivu’s cheeks.  
  
“I’m sorry, Baahu,” the king murmured. He stroked back Shivu’s hair from his face with a tender hand. “You can forgive me, can’t you? Of course you can. You always saw the good in people, even when it wasn’t there. But perhaps now you understand: there was never any good in me. Maybe now, you can see me for what I am. You should despise me, and fear me. Soon, you will.”  
  
He cupped Shivu’s cheek in his hand and deliberately pressed his fingers into the already swelling bruises.  
  
“I think I will hate that, and I cannot wait to see it.”  
  
Faster than Shivu could process, the king’s hand twisted eye-wateringly tight in Shivu’s hair while the other seized his jaw like a vice. The king’s kiss was an assault. His mouth covered Shivu’s, smothering him, the coarse beard scraping like wire. Shivu’s wrists were twice-bound in irons and the king’s iron grasp. Panic gave way to a rising tide of horror. With an eager groan the king began to grind himself against Shivu’s hips, each thrust making the chains rattle.  
  
Instinct drove Shivu’s knee upward, but his fetters reduced the movement to a jerk of his thigh that only elicited a nauseating, hungry noise from the king, who pressed still more closely against him. His bruised and injured body caught between Bhallaladeva and hard stone, Shivu gasped in pain. When he opened his mouth the slick heat of the king’s tongue forced its way into his mouth.  
  
Instantly, Shivu snapped his jaws shut, but the king had expected it. Expected it, but he hadn’t moved quite quick enough. Shivu tasted blood in his mouth, the copper tang blended horribly with the sandalwood scent on the king’s silks.  
  
“Oh, very good.” Shivu felt the reverberation of the king’s laugh in his own chest. Their faces were so close together that Shivu could see nothing else; yet he did not look away, not even at the king’s red smile.  
  
“Get away from me,” Shivu said slowly, keeping his voice steady despite the repulsion that filled him. “Are you an animal to force yourself on another living soul? I have not consented to this which makes it abomination. Whether you think me your brother or your nephew, it is abomination twice over.”  
  
“A pretty speech, and a passionate one. When I stripped you of your title and made Sethupathy commander, there was none of this defiance.” He smiled. “But when you cut off his head, now that was something to see. Righteous wrath: the anger of a god.” He leant in, trailing his tongue along the side of Shivu’s neck. “How well blood suits you, Baahu.”  
  
“That,” Shivu said, trembling with adrenaline, “is not my name.”  
  
“Amarendra, Mahendra: it is all one. I know who you are. Do you?”  
  
Despite it all, through all his revulsion and horror, Shivu did know. The question was meant to disquiet him, but it never could. An inviolate surety dwelled within him: an island of calm where he could ask and answer this question of himself.  
  
Shivu still could not think of himself in his own mind as “Mahendra”, but his soul resounded with the rightness of that name. The name called to him, just as this world above the waterfalls had called to him. It compelled him, driving him onward along an unknown and perilous path. Yet strange though it was, he knew he would not stumble—this path had been made for his feet, and he had been made to walk it.  
  
“I asked that question of another a few days ago,” Shivu said slowly, holding the memory of Avanthika like a talisman. “When I asked her, I thought I was a villager, son of the village leader. Now I learn that I am descended from a great and noble lineage. I am not sure what I am: peasant or prince.”  
  
He thought of the waterfalls, remembered the deep thunder of it in his bones, the titanic force of water, the sense of danger second only to the drive to climb. That climb was his truth. It was his fate and his duty to strive for heights that others could not reach. Where he climbed, others might find the strength to follow.  
  
“But I have always known who I am.”  
  
He met the king’s eyes and, despite his bruises, Shivu smiled.  
  
“Who are _you_ , I wonder?”

 

* * *

 

And as the boy Shivu asked him, he smiled. It was not Baahu’s smile: Baahu had never seen into Bhallaladeva’s very heart like that. In Bhalla, Baahu had seen the duties owed to a cousin and brother, the duties owed to his king, and a man behind those roles whom he had blindly trusted. Baahu had never seen Bhallaladeva for what he was, as this boy did now. Here was all Baahu’s strength and virtue, but here also were Devasena’s knowing eyes.  
  
“I see you do know who you are.” Shivu’s smile widened. It was a young man’s smile, cocky and confident. But beneath that was something deeper: something that saw the darkness and was not afraid. “For that, I could almost pity you.”  
  
Bhallaladeva’s hand shot out, seizing the young man’s throat. The muscles stood out like whipcord on his arm as he raised him up the few inches that the chains allowed. Shivu gasped for air, arms and legs flailing against the bonds that held him.  
  
The king held him pinned, cutting off the air until he was sure every trace of that knowing smile was gone. Then he released him. Shivu sagged into his chains. He hung there limply, his ragged gasps echoing in the silence of the cell.  
  
“You will come to know me soon, and all too well for your liking. Cherish your ignorance while you still can.”  
  
Dully, Shivu felt the horror of one last, brutal parody of a kiss. Then the king was gone, taking the torch with him. Shivu was alone in the dark again, with only his own thoughts for comfort.

 

* * *

  
  
Bhallaladeva stormed up the passage from the dungeons, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.  
  
_Unclean,_ the night whispered. _Not good enough. Never good enough._ Old, familiar demons. But now, a new form of an old torment: _You may not have him._  
  
He had wanted the young man so much the need had almost blinded him. Bhalla had lusted for him with every fibre of his being, his whole body alive with the promise of violence. There he was—Baahu or Shivu the distinction did not matter—finally within Bhalla’s grasp. All he had to do was lean in and kiss those infinitely familiar lips. Finally, at long last, he had done so.  
  
It had been everything he’d ever dreamed, but in the very instant the dream had become a nightmare. He had kissed, he had touched, and the cost had been terrible. All his life, he’d known he could not have his brother. Now he knew, just as certainly, that he could not have the son, either.  
  
_Unclean, whispered the voices. You are unclean._ There was a purity in the boy’s very skin that had made each kiss unbearable. It was a holy fire which would consume and immolate everything that Bhallaladeva was.  
  
All the sweet, dark things Bhallaladeva had dreamed of were denied him, as they always had been. He could not create something new from this bond he shared with his brother. He was bound by the same eternal curse.  
  
No, not entirely. This was not Baahubali. _His son,_ a distant, sane part of himself insisted. _My nephew._ The son was, and was not, Baahu. After all, Bhalla could never have lain a finger on Baahu himself. In having the father murdered, it seemed Bhallaladeva had won himself this one gift: he could hurt the son. He had struck him.  
  
Lust and hatred scorched him. If Bhallaladeva could not create something new from his desire, then it only remained for him to destroy.


	5. Night Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shivu is safely imprisoned in Mahishmati's dungeons, and Bhallaladeva should be able to rest, untroubled by fears or doubts. But that is not the way of dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not explicit but here's the dream sex scene I warned you about: people _definitely_ have sex in this chapter, and those people are cousins who were raised with brothers. I need not elaborate the myriad ways that shit is fucked up.

Bhallaladeva started from sleep as the goblet slipped from his hand, clattering to the floor. Instantly, a servant shuffled forward from the shadows by the wall to retrieve it. He watched her. Feeling his gaze, she hunched even lower, retreating so entirely into the servile anonymity of her role that Bhallaladeva found he could not determine if the girl were pretty or not. As she stooped to retrieve the goblet, he considered kicking her, just to see if he could force some kind of sentient emotion from that cringing mask.  
  
He did not kick her. She had been standing vigil by the chamber wall as he drank himself into sleep, his usual self-control failing him. Bhallaladeva had been no better than his father, who’d spent his whole life too cowardly and pathetic to do anything other than pule and moan and poison his body with wine. That was not who Bhallaladeva was. This creature was witness to that weakness, and it infuriated him that this wretch could hold that over him.   
  
Bhallaladeva rose, moving so suddenly that the servant girl stumbled in her haste to get away from him. He ignored her, telling himself that she was nothing. He was _maharaja_ and she was less than the dirt beneath his sandals. He could snuff her life out with his bare hands, and history would never record her death. She was nothing!  
  
Nothing by herself, perhaps, said a cruel, cold voice in his head. But a thousand, thousand cringing fools like her made a beast greater than any he could kill, a beast whose raised fists and shouting mouths yammered defiance and his brother’s name. The people had always known Bhallaladeva for who he truly was, even when his family did not. The people had not been deceived.  
  
Let them love Baahubali, he thought angrily. Bhallaladeva had never known their love before, and he did not need it now.

  
His chambers tilted unsteadily as he walked, but he made his body move with precision, one foot in front of the other, never wavering. Reaching his sleeping chambers, he shouted to be left in peace, and the servants scuttled out, pulling the doors shut behind them.  
  
Lying down, he shut his eyes.   
  
And _he_ was there: Baahubali. Bhallaladeva could smell him.  
  
His eyes snapped open. The scent was on his skin, on the hand he’d lain by his head on the pillow. His knuckles were dark and sticky with Baahubali’s blood. Bhallaladeva inhaled deeply, and bringing his hand to his mouth. The blood tasted dully of copper, no different from his own blood or that of an animal’s. Yet Bhallaladeva felt his heart beat faster, remembering the sharp pain and sweet blood when Baahu— _no, Shivu_ —had bitten his tongue in their kiss. Well, something like a kiss. How those eyes had blazed at him, though, utterly defiant, even when chained and beaten.  
  
Smiling, he shut his eyes again.

  
  
Bhallaladeva dreamed.

  
  
 _“Please.”_  
  
The word was spoken in a familiar voice, but the intonation was unlike anything he had heard it utter before.  
  
He stood in Baahu’s old chambers. In reality, they had long since been gutted to make a miscellaneous wing for visiting nobility. But in the dream he was unsurprised to see that they had once again assumed their old appearance, with swords on the walls and Baahu’s armour on its stand.  
  
Bhallaladeva moved soundlessly through the rooms, the lanterns burning unflickering as he passed. Following the sound of voices, he found himself at the entrance to Baahu’s sleeping quarters.  
  
When he entered, he hardly knew what it was he saw. The sheets slipped and shifted over the two bodies on the bed like some magician’s trick, revealing and concealing by turns: there a shoulder, there the line of a thigh, there skin sheened with sweat. The men beneath moved in slow, delectable rhythm, united in body and in purpose.  
  
The uppermost sat up, the sheet sliding from his back. As he rose, Bhallaladeva caught a glimpse of the man lying beneath, and his blood turned to fire.  
  
It was Baahu. Baahu: naked, spread out on the sheets of his bed, damp hair curling with sweat, every straining muscle in his body picked out in shadow and golden lamplight. Baahu, with his face taut with pleasure, eyes wide and dark, gasping for breath.  
  
Murderous envy seared Bhallaladeva’s heart. He stepped forward, hand outstretched to seize the stranger’s neck, to rip him off his brother, to punish the man, to sink nails and teeth into the red meat of his body, to strike again and again and again until...  
  
“Please,” Baahu said again. “Bhalla, please.”  
  
And the stranger—who was no stranger—laughed, bending his head low for a kiss. Baahu pushed himself up on his elbows, meeting him halfway, pressing his mouth to Bhalla’s with a sigh.  
  
“‘Please’ what?” The other, impossible Bhallaladeva asked. And now, with the strange logic of dreams, Bhallaladeva was watching from beside them, close enough to see the beaded sweat on their brows. “I think I’d like to hear you beg.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Baahu said, breathless and fond. “I couldn’t play that kind of game. How could I keep from bursting out laughing?”  
  
“You were begging before.”  
  
“I was only— _oh!”_ Baahu gasped as Bhalla began to roll his hips again, lingering and slow. “I was only being—being polite.” Mischief sparkled in Baahu’s eyes.  
  
“Was that what that was? How disappointing. I thought I was able to reduce you to a less mannerly state.”  
  
“Impossible: I was better raised than that.”  
  
“ _Mmmm,_ that may be so. But perhaps I was not.”  
  
“Of course you were. Don’t be— _ah!_ —don’t be foolish.”  
  
“Then let me ask: say it again. Say what you said before.” Bhalla did not know his own voice, not when it sounded like that. The man who spoke so could not be him.  
  
Before he could question the dream’s logic, his perspective shifted again, and for one moment the two Bhallaladevas were one. He looked out of his double’s eyes and into Baahu’s as his brother smiled up at him. Every line of that face was right, every lash, every part of that brilliant smile. The dream was strange, but not this. This was too right to be anything but truth.

Baahu’s eyes were soft, his voice filled with a simple sincerity that that made Bhalla’s chest ache as he heard his brother’s words: “I love you, Bhalla.”

  
  
Bhallaladeva woke with a hoarse cry in his empty chamber.

The room was inky black: the lamps had guttered out. He did not relight them.

Dressing in the dark, he left his rooms and strode out into the night.


	6. As The Sparks Fly Upward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deprived of his desire and even of sleep, Bhallaladeva does what he always does when tormented by his own being: he goes to Devasena. After all, she does not yet know that he has her beloved son in chains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I assume Devasena’s been faking hunching over in Bhalla’s presence because it’s part of the Grand, Patient Scheme.
> 
> At point, I have also explained a quasi plot-hole. On the other hand, I now owe apologies both to the Baahubali cast and to King Priam’s family. What a life.

“I have your son.”  
  
There was no movement from the depths of the cage. The silence was complete: not a breath, not a rustle, no clank of chains. The night breeze stirred the branches of the nearby trees, though it was not strong enough to bring down more twigs for the madwoman to collect.  
  
“He’s chained in my dungeon as we speak. Chained, just like his mother.” Bhallaladeva nudged one clinking length with the toe of his sandal. “Though you enjoy certain freedoms your son does not.”  
  
Still, she did not speak; Bhallaladeva took no notice. Her silence was familiar, as natural as the night’s darkness.  
  
“What would be crueler: for you to see him, defeated as he is now, and to let you watch his death and the ruination of all your hopes? Or for me to kill him before ever you see him again, so you can understand at last that you are alone?”  
  
The latter, he thought, an electric of frisson of anticipation running through him. Devasena had always had her mad delusions to comfort her. He could tell. She had never understood that she was alone—alone, with him, and the emptiness. That was her madness; he did not like to think on his own. But with Devasena and her son in his power, perhaps he’d chained his demons at last. At last, the fates were rewarding him. He would kill Devasena’s son, and at last he would have peace.  
  
A horn sounded, shattering the night’s stillness.  
  
Bhallaladeva’s head snapped round and heard more horns, blaring out the warning of an escaping prisoner. Cries and _alarums_ echoed and re-echoed off stone walls in a chaos of noise. The palace walkways burned bright with flowing lines of torches as companies of guards hurried towards the prison block. Above the tumult, the sculpture of the great burning crown of Mahismathi burned on, shining like a red beacon under the wheeling stars.  
  
Standing in the square, gazing up at all that great weight of stone, Bhallaladeva felt himself unaccountably small and separate from it all. This was his palace. It was his home. Yet, looking up at it in the shadowed night, something cold and leaden welled up around Bhallaladeva’s heart, pulling at him like the force of a great river.  
  
Suddenly from behind him he heard the sound of chains.   
  
Wheeling round he saw Devasena standing in the shadows of her cage, a dark shape against the deeper darkness. She did not move. Even in bright starlight he could see nothing but her outline.  
  
The sounds from the palace grew louder, but Devasena did not turn towards them. He felt her gaze on him, heavy with intent. Watching her in that one still moment, Bhallaladeva felt a shiver run through him, thought in that moment he could not have said why.   
  
“You shall never see him alive,” he promised her.

  
  
Returning to the palace, he set servants to bring out his chariot to the square where Devasena was shackled. He would chain her son’s corpse behind his chariot and drag it through the streets until the body was a pulp, and he would start and finish his triumphal course in the great square where Devasena could see it all.   
  
_Devasena._ That image of her standing in her cage had unnerved him. She had been so still, so silent, with all the focused intent of madness. Yet Bhallaladeva did not know why even the memory of it should still make his skin crawl with dread.   
  
It was only later that he realised.

Though she had been dark and silent as ever, the woman watching him from the shadows had—for the first time in over twenty years—been standing entirely upright: tall, stern, and immovable as doom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we we end our canon divergence chapters. Now back to your regularly-scheduled canon-compliant madness.
> 
> As I mentioned before, I headcanon that Devasena hunching over like that was entirely a ruse. I refuse to believe she was doing anything other than playacting, because my heart says that she could be chained for a hundred years and she could still kick Bhallaladeva’s punk ass. She was just waiting for the right moment, Bhalla, you kin-slaying, murderous fuckhead. HAHA, ASSHOLE, YOU’RE FUCKED NOW. 
> 
> Chapter title is from Job 5:7 of the Jewish Tanakh/Christian Old Testament, the full quote being, "Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward". The broader context of that book is basically the question of human suffering and why God allows it. Many read the book of Job and have to fall back on "God has a plan". In the case of this story, there is arguably very much a God with a plan, and suffering will be redeemed. But I also freely admit that the idea of Devasena's suffering then being redeemed through literally setting Bhallaladeva on fire was too good for me to resist.


End file.
